At most, you can slip a piece of paper between the Blues’ backs and the wall. Things are that dire, that desperate.

“We gotta sort it out,” Blues goalie Jordan Binnington said. “We’re missing a lot of guys. We gotta find a way. We’re all NHL players, and we’re all capable of playing the right way and playing as a team and that’s what we have to do.”

Four years ago, right around this time, an obscure goalie — unproven and untested — came up from the minors and rescued them. That’s not going to happen this time around.

“Well, that goalie’s here,” Binnington said, speaking of himself. “That’s what I’m gonna say to that.”

An admirable display, however brief, of the old Binnington swagger. But the Blues need more swagger, more emotion, more of just about everything right now — except mistakes.

On a veteran-laden team, those mistakes keep popping up night after night lately — usually a different player or combination of players every game. And that’s one of the most puzzling aspects of this season: the mistakes keep happening.

“Yeah, it’s not how we want to be. It’s not how we want to play,” Binnington said. “It’s on us to look inside and find it and find a way.

“We gotta all look in the mirror and find a way, find ourselves, find our character, and find a way to win. Because it’s a tough league and you can get left behind pretty fast. And we know that.”

With three highly disappointing losses over the past week, the Blues are just about in that “left behind” stage. Of course, professional athletes in a team sport can’t afford to think that way. And Binnington feels there is enough within the group to rally and still make something of this season.

“I think if we play together, play as a team — you’re a selfless player and you sacrifice and you’re focused — I think any team can get the job done,” he said.

“I think we have a good roster. So I do think it’s possible. It just starts with one day at a time, one game at a time, one period at a time. Just playing hard.”

For coach Craig Berube, it would be nice if it just started with a good start. The Blues haven’t led for a single second in any of their last three games. They fell behind 3-0 against Chicago, 4-0 against Buffalo, and 5-0 against Arizona. Which in itself is mind-boggling.

On Thursday, a night when there was lots of energy in the intimate setting of Mullett Arena — and lots of boisterous Blues fans in the building — Berube was perhaps most disappointed in the team’s flat start.

“The last three games for me — Chicago, Buffalo and obviously Arizona — we’re not emotionally involved to start the game. Emotionally into it,” Berube said. “And that’s a problem.

“You need emotion to play this game. Our starts were not good in all three games, and we get behind. Last night, it was the second period, but you gotta be emotionally engaged in the game.”

Even though the Arizona game featured a scoreless first period, Berube wasn’t pleased with his team’s start.

“We got veterans (in the lineup) to start the game, and we give up two chances right off the (bat),” Berube said. “Right off the neutral zone, and it’s unacceptable.

“If we don’t come out with more emotion and determination to check, to win battles and all the little things, what’s gonna change?

“You gotta have emotion. You gotta want to win puck battles. You gotta want to play a certain way. The last three games, we have not wanted to play that way for 60 minutes. That’s the bottom line of it all.”

In that sense, the Blues miss having the feisty David Perron around. He was capable of dragging his team into the fight. Although he does it with a different style, the same holds true for Ryan O’Reilly, who’s out of the lineup with a foot injury.

So who drags this team into the fight? Who provides the spark that gets them going? If it doesn’t happen very soon, it will be too late.

The Blues stayed in Arizona after Thursday’s game and practiced at the Mullett Arena facility late in the morning before leaving for Denver, where they play the Colorado Avalanche at 2 p.m. CT/1 p.m. MT on Saturday.

Prior to that practice, they looked at video and talked about some of these issues — the need for better starts, more emotion, and fewer mistakes.

Perhaps, as Binnington said, it is within the team to find a way. Or maybe they will continue to be lost in a wilderness of lost opportunities and lost games.

There’s no doubt Colorado is a big game. The Avalanche sit in the second wild-card spot, six points ahead of St. Louis, and with two games in hand.

Win, and the Blues are just four points out and maybe find a little spark. Lose, and they’re eight points back and in even more trouble.

“We know them very well,” Binnington said of the Avalanche. “Every game’s a big game for us from here on out. We know that.”